Fire Water
by Rockbird
Summary: It burns your lips and soothes your soul unless it scalds that as well. And if it catches you, you may never get away.
1. Age Twelve

Abby isn't mine. ER isn't mine. Blondie isn't mine.

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She snuck into the kitchen in the dark of the night. It was nine thirty. Everyone else was asleep. And she stood on a chair, because she was still rather short. And she pulled the bottle down. Still standing on the chair, she uncapped it. It smelled nice. Orange liquor. She drank a swallow or two, not knowing how much strength it would have, then put on the cap and put the bottle back and slid the chair back into place. She walked back to her bedroom and closed the door and put on a record. 'Blondie' begins to play, with the scathing words of a New York goddess. The pounding drums, the firey guitars, the dance that the keyboardist's fingers must be doing on the instrument, and on top of it all, icing on a very good cake, the voice. Not skilled, but filled with that attitude. The song was somehow so much better than she remembered it. She liked 'X Offender' now, more than she had before. She stood up and danced a little, stumbling now and then. The world was a little bit softer, and she focused on the music.

That was her first drink.

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	2. Age Thirteen

Disclaimers: ER isn't mine. Abby isn't mine

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, and thanks Brynn, you know why. My chapters will get gradually longer as Abby gets older.

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The kahlua was sweet on her lips and bitter on her tongue. She collected a fair quantity of it in her mouth before she forced it down. "Good stuff," she mumbled, not quite sarcasticly. She sat with her back to the wall, the large bottle in her lap, with an arm wrapped protectively around it. She would have some fun tonight. Again, she held it to her lips, but this time drank continuously, like it was a bottle of water and she had just run a mile, rather than like it was alcohol in her room at midnight. Ignoring the sticky sweetness and bitter bite that accompanied it, she kept going untill the impulse to gag forced her to stop. A few swallows and she was sure that the fluid would absorb into her system rather than coming out the way it went in. Another few gulps. She didn't taste it so strongly any more, and when she turned her head, her eyes took a moment to adjust, things were streaky. If she had gotten up, she would have found herself to be pleasantly tipsy. But that wasn't what she had in mind. 

No music tonight. She didn't want sound. In fact, the day had been too loud, so loud that she craved silence. Her mother's screaming still echoed in her ears, it had not been a good week. Her teachers had confronted her about her falling grades, they'd all said the same thing more or less, 'So bright, but it's close to the end of the semester and you haven't been doing your work. There's concern that you could fail.' One of her teachers had offered her a chance to bring her thirty eight percent up to a seventy if she just did a project over the weekend. It was Sunday night and she hadn't touched it. She wouldn't. It didn't matter enough. She just didn't want to think about it.

Another gulp. A third of the bottle was gone. And another. And another. Untill half of a bottle of kahlua remained and Abby was asleep.

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	3. Age Fourteen

Abby isn't mine. ER isn't mine.

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She took the first sip. Or gulp. Whichever it was, it took two swallows. She began it as though it were water or milk. Then she stopped. If it were water, if it were milk, she would have drained the quarter of a glass. If it were water or if it were milk, she would have poured more than a quarter of a glass. As it was, she estimated that about five shots had been poured. Maybe four, maybe six. 

As her mouth came away from the glass, she grimaced for a moment, slightly. The taste wasn't something to be relished. The bottle had been labeled in Spanish, but from the taste, it was scotch. Probably. She wasn't so good at guessing drinks. It was a faint yellow amber, and had that slightly smoky taste though, so she guessed it was scotch.

She swallowed again to get rid of the taste. She shook her head, then she shuddered, shivered. Then she paused to think for a moment. Why was she doing this? To prove her friends right? That she was an alcoholic? No, she could go for weeks without a drink, and she still didn't like the taste. There was no physical dependence. Why not have a drink. It must be how royally fucked up things are in school right now. That could be it. Or how royally fucked up things are at home. She picked up the glass once more. Three swallows this time, she promised herself as she held it to her lips to drink.

She managed four instead. Then she suppressed a gag reflex. Looking at the glass, there was one swallow left. Once this wave of shudders subsided, she knocked it back like the shot that it was.

Upon further inspection, it was more like a shot and a half or maybe two. Either way, it was doable in one swallow. God how she hated the taste.

She had goosebumps, and a taste like kerosene lingered in her mouth. Pleasant, very pleasant. Not.

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	4. Age Fifteen

Disclaimer: ER, Abby, Eric, Maggie, and Stephen King are all someone else's. The first four are the creation of M. Cricheton. I'm fairly certain Stephen King belongs to himself.

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"Fifteen. Happy birthday to me," she sang bitterly. Mommy dearest. Well, she should feel sorry for the woman, but she just couldn't. How could she feel sorry for someone who refused to take care of herself. Well, at least she could choose what school she went to, who she was friends with. She didn't always choose well, but she had a choice. Most other kids didn't. Their parents cared. Didn't want them to fuck up. Too late for that. Too late to give a damn? Her mother had spent the whole day manic. Manic and angry. Whether or not the woman remembered that it was the fifteenth birthday of her first born child was a mystery. Didn't matter in the end though, did it? Eric was off at a friend's house. Actually, he had been for nearly a week. For the best. Until the worst of the rapid cycling was over. Port. A bottle of port. The only alcohol in the damned house. She didn't care for the taste of wine in large quantities. Didn't care if it was good wine or bad wine. See, the problem was it took an entire bottle to get drunk. Properly shit faced and thrashed. So she drank the whole bottle.

Sat in the tub with a horror novel of some sort. Stephen King was it? Stephen King, bubble bath, and port. Read a paragraph, take a drink. Read a page, take two. A chapter was worth five. And then she forgot about the book. She drained the bottle, then the bath, then went to her room, stumbled to the bed, and nestled between the sheets. "Happy birthday to me," she mumbled.

Three days later, when her brother came home he apologized for missing her birthday. The bottle on the bathroom floor wasn't news. Neither was the fact that Maggie hadn't noticed it. Maggie had run off with her boyfriend. God knows how long this time. "Abby, hey sis?" he pestered at supper, "I threw out your old novel. Sorry. It was in the tub. It was a mess."

"Oh," she said. They talked for a while, and then he cried. Mommy was gone. Would she come back? Didn't the dumb kid get how it was with Mommy? She always went, and she always came back. "It'll be okay."

"Liar."

He was right, she was lying, Maggie would come back, but it would never be okay. She lied to a little kid. She needed a drink.

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	5. Age Sixteen

Disclaimer: Abby isn't mine, ER isn't mine.

Author's notes: AA is a good thing, and Abby ends up there eventuall, just not yet. She's a teenager, therefore is in the phase where she is invincible and the exception to every rule. But aren't you glad to have a chapter where she isn't guzzling booze?

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She was sitting in an AA meeting, wondering why the fuck she was there. Oh yeah, appeasing her friends. Goodie. They might have had a point, but still, she was a kid. Too young to be an alcoholic. Everyone was going on and on about their bottom. She wasn't homeless, hadn't lost custody of any children (hadn't had any children), hadn't ruined a marriage, hadn't lost her family (as much as she wished that she had...), she wasn't facing bankruptcy, she wasn't that fucked up. She couldn't possibly be. She was just a kid in a crappy situation who happened to drink, right?

When she got home, something kept nagging her. She was sixteen. Too young to be an alcoholic. And female. The only woman at the meeting. She wasn't an alcoholic, no; she could stop, just like that. She simply didn't want to, had no reason to stop.

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	6. Age Seventeen

Disclaimer: Abby and ER are not my property.

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She wondered why her face was so wet? Slimy almost. What was in her hair? What the fuck? Must have drooled in her sleep. She didn't care. She cracked an eye open. The light was still vaguely bluish, just before sunrise. She could sleep a bit longer. An hour before the bus would show up. 

"Shit," she breathed as she sat up. Bus would be there in five. She had fully intended to go to school in yesterday's clothes. Except yesterday's clothes were covered in puke. Lovely. Beautiful. Shit. She could change them, but still. She suddenly felt dirty. Her face. She had to wash her face too. A hand ran threw her hair. Crap. Shit. Disgusting. Seemed she would have to wash that too. "So maybe I passed out last night instead of falling asleep..." She had to clean up. Two days in the same clothes, that's fine, after all, it's only school, the other kids did it sometimes. Not usually quite so often, but hey, she was a pariah anyhow. Any day with vomit in her hair though... No. So she was going to miss the bus today. At least she slept last night. Hah.

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